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Little Mountain Density Models: The Movie!

Here are the density models you’ve asked for. I’ve shot the 7 density models in sequence, from 7 different angles. After watching this video 7 times you’ll be ready to fill out the survey you received at one of the Open Houses or found HERE, on line. And check out all of the photographs of Open House Presentation Materials also. Just make sure that the City of Vancouver Major Projects Planning dept. gets it by July 25th!
DID ANYONE NOTICE, that there’s something seriously wrong about the scale of the trees on the model? I mean, how many trees along 33rd Avenue are 8 stories tall? An error of this kind, makes the size of the buildings appear much smaller.

Also, David Chudnovsky has informed us that the planning department’s PDF is non-interactive. Check out his comments on this blog. I discovered that it’s also non-printable. I suggest, that you email The City and ask them to repost the survey as an 8.5 x 11 inch document, so that’s print, scan and fax ready by standard business machines.

UPDATE!
Ben Johnson has posted an 8X10 PDF on their site, that functions adequately, though it does cut a few pages in half. But I think that you can figure it out.
Get those surveys in.

You probably watched this computer simulation of a walk through the site. Here it is again.

ACTUALLY, to Click on “FOLLOW ME” (at the top-right of this web-page) does not automatically keep you informed of new postings. You need to set up RSS (Really Simple Syndication) on your own computer. Click on this link for a YouTube video about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU
The beginning of the video is sort of hokey, but it more or less explains why and how it exists, and why you should have it. Setting up something like Google Reader is simple and free. There are dozens of info sites on RSS feeds on the web.

4 thoughts on “Little Mountain Density Models: The Movie!”

I had an interesting experience the other day before attending a friend’s
dinner party at a condo in the Olympic Village. I explored the shoreline
just west of their building, where there is an experimental garden. In this
garden at the water’s edge they are growing veggies in recycled things,
like pallets, burlap sacks, various found objects. It is quite a complete contrast to the Olympic Village condos. It made me think that that is what is missing in these large high-end developments – there is no sense of some sort of organic tactile relationship with place and community. I think people were trying to get at some of these ideas in the first design process at Little
Mountain.
I don’t know enough about the design and economics of these large urban
developments but I wonder if there is a way to create a more vibrant
community and allow for a more creative, interactive, tactile relationship to
place. If not, I think (from what I see in the architect’s recent drawings) the
development at the Little Mountain site could easily turn out to be a repeat
of what exists at the Olympic Village.
Deb

Hello David. Thanks for all your work and documentaries. Ties everything together very well and, to me, shows the futility and sham status of ‘public consultation’.

I think I can already predict the process, and it’s sad it’s so predictable. Holborn will go to the City with its proposals- ‘sandbagged’ to include two 14-19 storey towers (already a given in the media). Then, under fake pressure will give way to 8-14 storeys as a compromise (common negotiation method). By then the City can claim they had a ‘robust public consultation process’ (quoted from the response to opposition to another recent rezoning meeting for some other project). This process is simply the last few years’ worth of open houses, where they simply tell you almost nothing. I already see the news media and some politicians saying the process is now being ‘held up by the public review process’.

The City is obviously going for way more density- mostly along the Canada Line (three new >200 foot towers at Marine), and everywhere else it can. Probably needed, but also probably for profit for the likes of Holborn, maybe a mix of the two. Whatever the reason, they will double and quadruple height rezoning everywhere they approve a project and not give the public any real say/input. Although they can claim they did since they held so many open houses which were essentially PR campaigns. I agree that we do need to go more dense, maybe 50% higher or even double the height (up to 8 storeys for Little Mountain’s case) in some buildings. But 19 storeys? Fourteen storeys?

In the end, if the public actually does hold up any project, they will just blame them for being anti-social housing, or, withhold ‘amenities’ as in ‘if you don’t let me build higher, then I can’t give you that (water feature, bike lane, day care, etc.)

Anyway- just my rant. Keep up the great blog. I will point people to it for sure since it’s the best summary/tracking site of this process. I’m a bit amazed at how many people are unaware of the process to date. I tell my neighbours that this site will include 10-14 storey buildings and they all reply ‘they’re not allowed to do that’.

For all of your insightful comments. I think that readers will appreciate that you appear in video streams of Meeting #10, currently on line, and also Meeting #4. I will post shorter clips from those video documents in future posts.

My answer to your question on the PDF is now at the head of my posting. Since the document is neither interactive nor printable it’s pretty well useless. I’ve put up a link to the City’s Little Mountain page so readers can contact city planning directly and tell them what’s wrong. Let’s get this fixed asap.

Thanks for this. I went to the link you provided to fill out the form on-line, but found that I couldn’t. My choices and comments weren’t coming through on the PDF. Any advice?

Good for you for creating this important blog.

For me the principles for Little Mountain redevelopment are clear:
1. There must be at least double the number of social housing units in the redevelopment as there were at Little Mountain before its destruction. That is, between 450 and 500 units of social housing at a minimum. Many of those units should be for families. There is a crisis of homelessness in this city that needs to be dealt with now.
2. The rest of the units should be affordable rental for families, seniors and young people. Affordable means the rents cannot be more than 1/3 of family income. That family income calculation needs to be tied to the average family income of Vancouver residents. The last thing Vancouver needs is hundreds more million dollar+ condos. We need affordable housing for working class and middle class families.
3. The deal with Holborn, which privatizes a large area of prime land that belongs to the people of British Columbia, needs to be scrapped. There is no reason to sell off the land. If government wants to derive a financial benefit from this asset that belongs to all of us, leasing part of the site for rental housing is a much better way to go and will provide income to the people of the province for as long as the leases last. In addition, privatizing the site means development decisions in the future will be made to satisfy private rather than community priorities and needs.
4. Any redevelopment needs to be consistent with the character of the community and the priorities set out by community members in the city’s Visioning Process which hundreds of residents have participated in over many years.

The consultation process puts us as residents in a very difficult position, because the key questions are never asked and critical information is never shared. I have attended a number of the public meetings and every time I do I ask the same questions: What is the development going to be? How much is going to be social housing and how much will be affordable for families? There’s never a clear answer. Personally I am prepared to support some greater density (as long as it’s consistent with the guidelines from the Visioning Process and consistent with the character of the neighbourhood) if that increased density is social housing and affordable family housing, not hundreds of million dollar condos. But none of that information is forthcoming. It appears that the plan is simply to replace the 224 social housing units that were destroyed – with 10 additional social housing units but no additional floor space.

Instead of a discussion about what will be built in the redevelopment (how much social housing, how much affordable rental, how many million dollar condos) we are asked to tell them where to put trees and bike paths.

It appears to me that the deal is stalled anyway. Holborn made its deal with the provincial government when condo prices were going through the roof. Rich Coleman decide that he’s rather be a property speculator that a Minister taking care of the housing and homelessness crises. The result of all that is the destruction of a successful community, the needless displacement of hundreds of people, and a huge vacant lot which is likely to stay vacant for many more years.